


The Taylor Swift Anthology

by badboy_fangirl



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-05
Updated: 2012-01-05
Packaged: 2017-10-29 00:42:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/313953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badboy_fangirl/pseuds/badboy_fangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damon Salvatore fucking hates Taylor Swift. (But Elena loves her.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story goes wildly AU from 2x08 "Rose."

_Some girls just can't resist my good looks,  
my style and my charm, and my unflinching  
ability to listen to Taylor Swift._  
~Damon Salvatore, from 1x04 "Family Ties."

 

Damon's pouring himself a drink when he sees it out of the corner of his eye. It's sitting on the bureau, the one that holds Stefan's old record player and his current CD player. There are stacks of CDs there, but the one that catches Damon's attention shows a girl in a purple dress thingy with lots of curly, blonde hair.

"Oh, _gawd_ ," he groans to the empty room. Damn Caroline Forbes. He'd bet his supply of blood bank goodies that she's the one who brought that particular CD into his house. Even Stefan, with all his need for the human experience, has better taste than that.

Damon Salvatore hates Taylor Swift, despite his ability to listen to her music.

He doesn't hate her because she can't sing (which, she totally can't), and he doesn't hate her because she's so overexposed it's ridiculous (which, she totally is). He doesn't hate her even though when he's driving his car on any given day and he does a scan of the available radio stations, he's bound to hear her on at least four of the stations he can pick up.

No, these aren't the reasons he loathes the blonde, guitar strumming waif from Nashville.

He'd been forced to listen to her music about four years previously, when he'd been dating a girl named Cassy at Brown University. (There for a while he'd been spending one year in each of the fifty states, and 2006 had been the year of Rhode Island.) Cassy was a Bio-Chem major, but was not as unattractive as that course of study might suggest. She was one of those insanely beautiful smart people who hadn't been fazed by the reveal that he was a vampire, and she'd let Damon feed on her without any compulsion whatsoever.

Cassy's flaw, if she'd had any, had been her taste in music. (Well, and she wasn't Katherine, which ultimately was why he ended all the dalliances he'd had over the years that had somehow escalated into some sense of permanence.)

The first time she'd insisted that he listen to the song "Teardrops On My Guitar," Damon had smiled his way through a chorus of _yeah, it's great_ all the while being acutely aware of his 160-plus year existence in comparison with Cassy's short two decades-worth. He'd simply shaken his head and moved on, not thinking too much of it.

Cassy had become-- _obsessed_ \--with the CD. She listened to it constantly, and after a while, just the repetition alone had made him learn the words. On the days he caught himself singing along (or worse, being away from Cassy and having different songs stuck in head without it playing anywhere near him), he would quickly stop, rolling his own eyes at himself.

He'd planned on leaving Rhode Island at the end of the year anyway, _scenic_ Ohio being his destination, but he'd ended up lingering. He blames all of that on Taylor Swift. Cassy had been a fun girl, but she'd been nothing abnormally special. He'd obviously been brainwashed by lyrics like _September saw a month of tears/Me thankin' God that you weren't here/To see me like that_ and _You never did give a damn thing, honey/But I cried, cried for you/And I know you wouldn't have told nobody if I died, died for you_.

For the space of nine additional months, he couldn't bring himself to do to Cassy what Katherine had done to him. At the time, all he'd had were his suspicions, things he was going to rectify in 2009 when he went back to Mystic Falls. Once the comet came back, and he found a way to get Katherine out of the tomb, he would find out why she had made Stefan a vampire too. He would find out the truth, and though he was sure he could forgive her for anything, and he would be her savior because it would be him who got her out, he still needed to know. He needed to assuage that feeling within that if she lied about it being only him, what else had she lied about?

 _Counted all the scars you made/Now that I'm sittin' here thinkin' it through/I've never been anywhere cold as you._

Taylor Swift might have been sixteen at the time, but there were moments when Damon found himself lingering over particular lines, and wondering. The term _old soul_ got thrown around from time to time, and since he could easily find the record of Taylor's birth (December 13, 1989 -- the clerk at the hospital in Pennsylvania had easily given up the location of their files with a little compulsion), he knew she was, in fact, human.

A human girl who just happened to be so young and sang songs that, like, legitimately depressed Damon with their heart-wrenching accuracy.

So, yeah, by the time he extricated himself from Cassy and Rhode Island, he'd been there almost a year and a half. And he fucking _hated_ Taylor Swift.

*

Ironically enough, 2009, the year of the comet, also became the year of Taylor Swift.

Damon managed to avoid listening to the record that she won so many awards for, but that was because he took a break from college girls and sorority houses. But by the fall of 2009, he was spending a little too much time with high school girls (yeah, it made him like a child molester, he supposes, but back where he came from people got married when they were fourteen) and his one rule while tolerating anyone (Caroline) who listened to Taylor Swift was just to not pay any attention to the lyrics. It worked fairly well, because the only song he'd accidentally listened to was one about a fifteen year old girl who gave her virginity away to some dick who treated her like dirt. (Damon had never had a thing for virgins, so it didn't apply to him. More experienced women tended to be less clingy, and he _needed_ less clingy.)

Then, you know, Stefan showed up in Mystic Falls too, they met Elena (Stefan first, yeah, whatever), the Comet came, they opened the tomb, found out Katherine wasn't there, and everything seemed to crash down around him.

The worst part was definitely that he'd always known, deep down inside himself. She had lied about many things, called all the shots, and he and Stefan had gone along with it (why, Damon wasn't really sure other than they were young, and stupid, and thinking with their dicks), and she had compelled Stefan to drink her blood. The fact that she wasn't even in the tomb shouldn't have been as surprising as it was.

(Shouldn't have torn his heart out the way it did.)

Somehow he'd always believed something that was totally untrue. He'd been optimistic about one damn thing, and it had bitten him in the ass.

Now, it's the fall of 2010. He's over Katherine, though he's no doubt traded in one torch carrying-century for another with Elena, but here he stands in his own living room looking at Taylor Swift's newest CD. It's in his hand, and he's reading the names of the songs off the back, even though he doesn't consciously remember picking it up.

"Damon?"

When he hears his name, he jumps, startled, and the CD goes flying out of his grasp. He turns around, sees Elena standing at the entrance to the great room, and he knows if he had the ability to blush, his face would be bright red right now. "Hey," he says as nonchalantly as possible. He moves away from the stereo and watches her carefully.

"Do you know where Stefan is?" she asks. "I--we were supposed to meet here, but he's not in the house."

Damon nods as he takes a swallow of his whiskey. "He said he was going to go hunting for a bit, but he'll be back soon. He should be back any minute."

Elena's lips curve upward as she walks further into the room, and her eyes move along the floor at Damon's feet. "You dropped something," she says, pointing down.

He follows her finger as though he has no idea what's there, and then bends over to pick it up. Holding it up in a self-explanatory matter, he mutters, "Caroline's."

"Sure it is."

Then Elena giggles, and Damon sort of does a double take.

 _Is she teasing him?_

He's so dumbfounded, he can't find words to argue, so he just sets the CD back on the bureau top and then moves away from the CD player. Elena fiddles with the scarf around her neck and watches him, her eyes dancing. "We can listen to it, if you want," she says.

He scoffs. "I don't listen to Taylor Swift."

"I don't know, you seemed pretty interested in it a minute ago."

He can tell she's actually trying not to laugh now, and he finds himself as charmed as he is irritated by it. (Okay, _fine_ , he's much more charmed than he is irritated.)

"Shut up," he finally says in response, taking another sip of his drink. He makes his way across the room and sits down on the sofa. "What are you and Stefan up to, today?" he asks conversationally. He really doesn't want to know what big date they're going on, but what else are they going to talk about?

( _Not_ Taylor Swift.)

"We're going to the library. We have reports due for Alaric's class."

Damon bites his tongue to not comment on the ludicrousness of the teacher grading Stefan on a report he'd write about a time period he actually lived through, but from the little grin still on Elena's face, it's like she's reading his mind anyway. He smiles with saccharine sweetness. "How very seventeen of both of you," he comments, raising his glass to her.

She does laugh now, out loud, and leans against the arm of the other sofa opposite him. "I've actually been thinking about that lately--how very trite it all must be to you."

He narrows his eyes at her. "Trite to me, or trite in general to all vampires?"

She nods at him. "I was thinking specifically of you. Of how it's trite to you, but not to Stefan."

"Just one of the many differences between us," he quips. Finishing off his drink, he leans forward and sets the empty glass on the coffee table.

"Yeah," she says, and her wistful tone draws his eyes back to her face. "But you probably hated school the first time around, right? Why would you go back and do it again on purpose."

She did that, every so often, just pegged him so completely that he felt more naked than the times he'd had his shirt off in front on her. He quirks an eyebrow at her instead of responding. He thinks of telling her the only reason Stefan's there is because of her, but she probably understands that as well.

Hell, maybe if it meant he'd get to be with Elena, he'd torture himself with it all over again too. It wasn't a bad idea when he thought of it in that vein. (No pun intended.)

He hears the door open and Stefan's arrival ends their time together. All for the better, really. No need to prolong the torture of loving someone he could never have, yet again.

When Stefan hugs her from behind, she says, "Oh, hi!"

Damon rolls his eyes, and grabs his glass. He gets up and walks back to the liquor cabinet. His back to them, he ignores their agreement to take Elena's car so that they can come back to the boarding house later. Then Elena's voice is directed at him. "Damon, don't think, just answer: What's your favorite Taylor Swift song?"

He replies before he can stop himself. " _Picture To Burn_ ," he says, and the lyrics hum in his head a little. _So watch me strike a match/On all my wasted time/As far as I'm concerned/You're just another picture to burn_.

He turns around, and Elena's smile is a little too wide, a little too beautiful. "Excellent choice," she says with a nod. Stefan's hand in is hers and he's pulling her towards the entry way. " _Never Grow Up_ is mine," she says. "It's on her new CD. But you probably already know that."

She laughs again, and disappears through the doorway.

"I don't listen to Taylor Swift," Damon shouts as he hears the front door open. It's futile, he knows. But he can't help himself, he's got to preserve something here.

"Oh, _I know_!" she calls back.

He fucking hates Taylor Swift. (But he totally loves Elena, so he takes the CD upstairs with him.)


	2. Chapter 2

Ever since the events with Rose and Elijah, Elena has woken more mornings than not from a half-remembered dream. It's always elusive; the things she does know are few, the things she doesn't many. What's always the same is the desperate feeling of _wanting_ to remember and the frustration of _not_ being able to.

Damon is always in these dreams, never Stefan. Sometimes he's touching her face, but in others he's far away; she can see him, even though he seems not to know she's there. It's always just as he opens his mouth to speak that she wakes, or her alarm goes off, or her phone buzzes.

This morning it's the latter, her phone vibrating near the edge of her bedside table. When she sees Stefan's name across the screen, she doesn't answer but instead gets out of bed and heads for the shower. She's up before Jer, so she gets all the hot water, and she takes an extra long time. Later she'll tell her sort-of boyfriend she hadn't heard the phone.

He's her sort-of boyfriend because ever since they _got back together_ , it hasn't really felt like that. They go through all the motions, and do all the things they used to (mostly), but Elena can't get comfortable with it.

It's just another thing she has no explanation for. She still loves Stefan very much, but something has changed between them, whether it's Katherine, or the things that have happened because of Katherine, or now because of the proposed danger Rose has shared with them, she just can't say.

She does know that she doesn't like Rose, even though she doesn't hold anything against her for what happened at that abandoned house three hours from Mystic Falls.

Elena figures any wrong doing on Rose's part was paid for in full when she watched her friend's head get ripped off.

She climbs from the shower when she hears Jer beat on the door with a fist. "'Lena! I have to get clean too, you know!"

Wrapping a towel around her body, she wipes the steam away from the mirror and looks into her own eyes. "Just a minute!" she calls to her brother. Leaning close to the glass, Damon and those dreams pop into her head again. She wonders if they're premonitions, and if the reason she doesn't like Rose isn't so much pettiness as it is a warning.

All the same, whether she brings hell down upon them, or saves them all from some unknown entity, the bottomline remains the same. Elena feels jealousy erupt along her skin every time she sees Damon with his new girlfriend. And every time Rose touches him, even casually, Elena can't ignore how much it bothers her.

She knows it's not right, but the reasons why it keeps happening can't be disregarded. It pains her to examine herself so thoroughly and find so much she doesn't like. Her diary pages have remained empty because the idea of writing down _I have feelings for Damon_ isn't something that should be put out to the universe.

*

She goes to the Boarding House after school because she knows Stefan won't be there. He's joined the basketball team for their senior year, and appears to be the star point guard. Tyler still hates him. Or hates him again? Elena can't keep track of it.

She looks through the CDs on the bureau in the living room, but doesn't find what she's looking for, so she goes upstairs and starts looking around Stefan's room.

Damon's not home; he's probably out with Rose somewhere, and that knowledge churns in her gut uneasily. She really doesn't like feeling jealous over Damon. It's ridiculous when the last thing she wants is his attention or affection, and with Rose around, she's hardly getting either. This is a good thing. Regardless of what happens with her and Stefan, she would never be with Damon, not in a million years.

(The fact that she even has this thought is somewhat terrifying.)

She can't find what she's looking for in Stefan's room, so she goes to Damon's. Maybe her teasing him about Taylor Swift had been right on the money. Standing in the doorway, she hesitates in stepping over the threshold. There's something very intimate about going into someone's room, but then she considers it's Damon, and he'd never been uncomfortable all the times he hung out in her room, including the time he pawed his way through her underwear drawer.

She enters quickly, as though someone might catch her, and looks around. It doesn't take long to find it, the CD case sits on a desk next to a laptop. She picks it up and intends to get out of the room as fast as possible, but when she opens the jewel case to check, it's empty.

Pausing, she turns around, wondering where the CD is, since there doesn't seem to be a CD player up here.

"Should we charge you with breaking and entering?" Damon drawls from behind her. She jumps, because of course she hadn't heard him, and when she looks at him over her shoulder, he's got one arm resting against the doorjamb and a very smirky smirk on his face.

There are moments when she's sort of astounded by how beautiful he is, in a different way from Stefan--from the light eyes and dark hair to the expression of profound delight that he sometimes shows her.

She much prefers the happy expression to the pained one he's given her lately, and though it hurts her to think it's because of Rose, she realizes all she wants is for him to be happy. Because if Damon is happy, he won't hurt people anymore.

This is all she has ever wanted, she realizes now, looking at him. Ever since that moment in the cemetery after the Katherine-less tomb, when he'd been more apparently broken than at any other time, and she had wished she could take away his pain. It's only in this moment, when it's all so beyond her reach that she finds that perhaps it would have made her happy to actually be _the one_.

 _There is something going on between the two of us, and you know it._

"If you wanted to keep people out, you'd lock the door," she remarks, shaking her head. She's reeling from these unwarranted thoughts, and all she wants now is to be anywhere else.

He clicks his tongue, chiding her as he moves into the room. "Our lack of foresight does not give you a license to steal. What are you doing in here?"

Forcing her trembling lips into a smile, she holds the jewel case up. "I'm looking for my CD. So where have you hidden it?"

Looking sheepish, he breezes past her to his laptop and ejects the disc from the side compartment. "I thought that was Caroline's. And you totally let me last week when you were here," he accuses, turning towards her. He holds it out to her and then snatches it back when she reaches for it, and she feels the echo again, the same reverberation that sounds in her dreams at night.

She stares at him, concentrating, but as always the feeling of awareness skips just out of reach. His eyes narrow, then drop to her neck before he just hands over the disc without making her beg for it. She presses forward, remembering that she'd just like to get out of there, away from the confusion. But she can't help teasing him first. "I didn't want to take it back when I knew you were enjoying it so much."

He mock glares at her. "I didn't listen to it until after that. I thought I'd give an ear to the song you said you liked. I mean, your taste is questionable--" his eyebrows go up and somehow she hears _Stefan_ even though he doesn't say it aloud. "But, it's not bad. She's got some good angst, that girl."

She can't help smiling at him as she snaps the CD back into place in the jewel case. "You like her, don't you? Tell the truth," she says when his mouth opens in automatic protest.

"I don't _like_ her," he says firmly. "I just...can appreciate her...um, her way with words." He shrugs and then sits down in the chair in front of his desk. He lounges, his body draping over the chair in a way that draws Elena's gaze to his crotch.

She spins away from him when she feels her cheeks heating. Focusing on what he just said, she responds, "Well, fine. I'll take that as your emotionally stunted way of saying you like her." She gets all the way to the doorway before she looks back at him. "I've got to run, so I'll see you later."

"That's really ironic, coming from you, Elena."

"What?" she asks, meeting his eyes.

"I'm emotionally stunted because I don't wear my heart on my sleeve? You'll learn sooner or later that sometimes the best thing you can ever do is not show how you really feel." He watches her thoughtfully, and there's no malice or sarcasm surrounding his words.

She pauses in her retreat, feeling as though he's saying something very important that she's not quite grasping. "Is that what Rose thinks?" she asks.

He gives her a strange look. "No. That's what _I_ think. What's Rose got to do with this?"

"I would just suspect that Rose, being a woman, wouldn't see that the same way. She'll want to know where she stands with you."

He smirks again, but this time it's vaguely sensual in a way that Elena truly despises because of all the ideas it sparks. "Don't worry about Rose. She knows exactly where she stands with me."

Nodding, Elena tries to leave again, only to hear him say her name. She hangs back a moment, looking at him once more. "You might want to clear things up with Stefan on that count though, you know." The smirk is gone and his face is serious; he's offering her a glimpse at how he cares for his brother, and it warms her in a strange way. It feels familiar, knowing that Damon loves Stefan, though he often makes a big production of not caring at all. "He can't be distracted right now. We need to be one hundred percent focused on keeping you and the Mystic Falls population safe."

Elena only nods again because she cannot argue the point, and because she won't stay there any longer and discuss anything else further.

She's running by the time she reaches the top of the stairs, though what chases her doesn't follow.

*

Stefan breaks up with her a few weeks later.

She says, "Really?" and he says, "It's for the best. If I'm trying to work out why things aren't right between us anymore, I can't concentrate on what's important."

Elena's temper soars in a way it hasn't with Stefan since the early days of their relationship. "This is Damon's idea, isn't it?" she demands.

Stefan's eyes dart away from hers and he shakes his head. "Elena, when Damon becomes the voice of reason, you know things are bad. Things are bad between us. And maybe it's all the danger, and the stuff with Katherine, and maybe, if it ever ends, we'll be able to..."

He doesn't finish the thought, but Elena doesn't care. She knows it's not ever going to go back to how it was. She has her vervain necklace, a hole in her memory, and Damon Salvatore in her head.

She'd finally broken down and told Bonnie about the dreams, and the _feelings_ and the vague emptiness she can't explain, and Bonnie had searched the Grimoire looking for answers. In the end, there was no spell to undo Compulsion, but Caroline said one day, "Oh, yeah, once you become a Vampire, you remember everything. Any trick they ever played on you slowly disappears. It's weird, and awful, and sort of liberating."

It's only late that night when Elena is lying in bed thinking that she realizes she's considering becoming a vampire just so she can remember one moment.

The fact that it feels so important --and worth it-- is the scariest thought she's ever entertained, and the last year and a half has employed some very scary thoughts.

*

Eventually, they decide to let Katherine out of the tomb. Damon rants and raves about what a stupid mistake it is, but Stefan calmly reasons that if she's out, the odds of her getting killed instead of Elena are better.

The truth is more people want vengeance on Katherine, so this is not necessarily a bad idea. Except, for the fact that it's _Katherine_.

Damon fumes as Stefan and Bonnie leave to go find Lucy. Bonnie needs a sister-witch to do the spell, and so they go to find Katherine's "friend." Elena stands in the living room at the Boarding House and watches him, wondering how in the world he can be wrong in this situation. She wants him to be wrong, but not for selfish reasons. She wants them all to be safe, because she's finally realized that Elijah will kill them all to get to her, and she would rather die once than watch any of them go before her.

"You should turn me," she says as she pops Taylor Swift into the CD player.

Damon's drinking, as usual, and his arm freezes in the upward motion of bringing the glass to his lips. "What?" he says, his eyes narrowed on her as she pushes play on the machine.

"I would be a lot more help if I were as strong as Caroline," she explains patiently.

He scoffs. "You've been watching the _Twilight_ movies again, haven't you?"

"Damon..."

"No," he says, the finality there so irritating, Elena throws up her hands in disgust. "No," he repeats and the hand that holds the tumbler full of whiskey clenches until the glass shatters.

She faces him completely, turning so that they're staring at each other across the back of one of the sofas. "Please," she whispers, and she sees how it undoes him, how his face softens, how so much more than just worry for their lives is going on there.

Suddenly he's standing in front of her, and she didn't even see him move. His hands wrap around her shoulders and he says, "You have no idea what you're asking."

She shakes her head fiercely when he gives her a hard jolt, his hands tightening against her body. "I do know, I've been thinking about it for weeks."

"Weeks? Yes, _weeks_ is long enough to decide you'll live for eternity."

"How long did you think about it?" she demands, lifting her chin.

"You mean, before I was tricked into it?" he shoots back sarcastically and then he pushes her away, like she's somehow globbing on to him. "Not fucking long enough," he mutters, moving away from her.

"You drive me crazy," she yells, and he whips around, looking at her in astonishment. "You are so full of contradictions, how can you even function!? You hate Stefan for doing this to you, yet you love being a vampire. You loved Katherine for 145 years, but now you want her to rot in the tomb. You wanted Stefan to break up with me, and now you won't do anything about it!"

She watches his hands curl into fists, and he slowly backs away from her. Elena's chest is tight even though she's just relieved herself of a great deal of emotion, and she wants--she's not even sure what she wants--just, Damon _doing_ something, anything that makes sense, because really, he hasn't, not since Rose came into their lives.

He's been completely different, and more than anything, the absence of him is what has made her realize how much she needs him. How much she _wants_ him, despite all the reasons why she shouldn't.

At the doorway, he says, "If you're going to listen to this crap, I'm gonna go," and he disappears so quickly, she hears the front door open and close with a loud bang.

Taylor sings in the background, _The story of us looks a lot like a tragedy now_ , and Elena crumples. She sinks to the floor, unsure of what exactly she's crying for.


	3. Chapter 3

"Elena said that?"

He nods jerkily, and if it were anyone else, he'd be embarrassed by his inability to do anything but gush like a girl. Part of him doesn't even believe it--she can't possibly have meant what it sounded like she said.

He needed a second opinion, and a female one at that.

So he came to the only place he could think of.

"That's...an interesting turn of events," Caroline says. She hands him a glass of whiskey and sits next to him on her bed. "I mean, I really didn't see that ever happening."

He sips slowly from the glass. "It's not happening. It's _not_."

"Wait," Caroline says, holding her hand up. "You're not going to turn her, or you're not going to do something about her and Stefan being broken up?"

He snorts into his glass as he drains the rest of it. Choking a little, he slides his gaze over and looks at her from the corner of his eye. "Neither," he croaks out.

Caroline stands up and paces back and forth in front of him. She begins thinking out loud with, "Well, she does have a point about her being more helpful if she were a vampire," but when he glares at her forcefully, she just pivots on her heel and puts her hands on her hips. "Fine, be all noble--or whatever--about Elena's mortality, but let's talk about this whole she-wants-you-now business. Because, let's face it, that's _way_ more interesting."

"She doesn't want me," he says, shaking his head. "She just..."

"That's sure what it sounded like to me. And, you know, she was asking me the other day about Compulsion. I got the feeling she and Bonnie were trying to figure out if there was a way to undo it."

"What?" he asks loudly, standing up. Suddenly he's got more energy in his body than he knows what to do with.

Caroline narrows her eyes at him shrewdly. "Did you compel Elena to do something?"

"No!" he shouts, which makes Caroline look all the more suspicious. "I didn't. I've never--the one time I ever tried to compel her, Stefan had already given her vervain, so she was uncompellable. And that was a long time ago, before I--" God, how sloppy is he getting if Elena knows she was compelled? Love fucking _sucks_.

"Before you loved her."

He curses under his breath and sets his empty glass down hard on the bedside table. "I don't fucking love her. Why does everybody always say that!?"

Caroline just laughs. "Oh, Damon." He looks at her over his shoulder and wants to choke the life out of her, that old murderous instinct alive and well within him, though not motivated solely by the fact that he's a blood-sucking vampire. There's a tinge of pity in her eyes, and it throbs through him like an off-beat drum. "You know you are very scary when you want to be, but you're also very transparent most of the time."

It's all so very humiliating, every aspect of it.

"You mean like how you're transparent?" he retaliates. "Like I don't know you're banging Tyler Lockwood."

Caroline is unabashed, and it's this facet of the vampire within her now that has chased away the insecure girl he first used and abused. Now she is his equal (and perhaps far better than him, but then again, who isn't?) and some sort of strange friendship has emerged from all the craziness. He'll never tell her how much he relies on her, but if he's so _transparent_ , he probably doesn't need to, anyway. She just smiles and wags her finger at him. "You can't distract me from the fact that we're talking about you for once. Damon, come on!" She comes closer to him and pats his chest like she's encouraging him. "Elena likes you. She wants you to kiss her or something. That's exciting, isn't it? I mean, don't you want her to like you, and want to kiss you? That's what normal people want when they love someone. But God knows, you're not normal, so maybe this is all so weird for you, and so you don't know what to do." She claps her hands together. "I'll help you! I'll help you figure out how to woo her. And then--"

"Caroline, shut up," he says harshly. She clams up immediately, but he can still see the wheels turning in her head. "You know she's just--like rebounding from Stefan. And besides, everyone knows she belongs with him, and eventually she'll get back together with him, and there's no room for me in that equation."

Caroline examines his face, and nods, and he feels an odd sort of relief, like if she agrees that Stefan and Elena will one day get back together, then nothing else matters. (Which is completely true--on both counts.) But she says, "You don't know Elena as well as you think you do. She's...she has this inner fire, something that has sort of been subdued since her parents died. And to be perfectly honest, Damon, the only time I ever see a glimpse of that girl, the one from before--it's when she's with you. All Stefan is, really, is an older version of Matt. Maybe Elena is drawn to safety in some way, but what she really craves is danger." She blinks at him. "And that's you."

 _You're the kind of reckless that you send me running, but I kinda know that I won't get far._

Fucking Taylor Swift. (And fucking Elena, always in his head...now with a soundtrack.)

Damon tries to clear his mind as he moves to the door of Caroline's bedroom. She resumes her spot on the bed, still watching him with a bit of a musing smile on her face. They've all agreed to do whatever they need to, to preserve Elena's life, but he's needed to say something particular to Caroline for a long time, and now is as good a time as any, considering she's already certain she knows everything important about him anyway. "You know I'm sorry about--how I treated you back when..." He has a hard time saying these things aloud even if he can acknowledge them privately now. (His sins, his regrets, everything.)

Caroline nods and smiles as she pulls a throw pillow across her lap. "Yes, I know. I've known ever since you found out about me and Tyler."

He lifts his eyebrows in question.

"You didn't try to kill either of us," she says offhandedly. "Seemed like you'd grown, or whatever."

Damon can't stop the smile from erupting on his face. Sometimes, when she's not annoying the hell out of him, he kind of loves Caroline, too. He raps his knuckles on the door frame. "Good call, Care. I'll see you later."

"Damon, you should go talk to Elena. Get it all out between you two. If..." she hesitates, and the serious light in her eyes makes him really listen. "If we do this, let Katherine out of the tomb, and fight Elijah, and everything goes bad--well. You just don't want things left unsaid, do you? It's better to take the risk, than regret never having tried."

(Right now, though, he totally hates her, for being right.)

*

Elena is unsurprised to see Damon on the window seat when she comes out of the bathroom, even though it's been months since he's turned up in her bedroom unannounced. She knows he's often outside, keeping watch, because he, Stefan, Caroline, and Rose had started doing shifts of surveillance at her house to make sure nobody was invited in who shouldn't be. Whenever it was Damon's turn, he always waited outside.

Not tonight, however; Elena feels her nerves come to the surface as soon as she sees him sitting there. Again, it's like she's been here before, like maybe she's dreamed this moment, except she doesn't know what happens. She knows now what she _wants_ to happen, but that doesn't mean it will.

"Hello, Damon," she says, speaking first.

He stays across the room, just sitting, staring at her. She doesn't move from her position outside the bathroom door, but waits to see what he'll do.

He takes a breath, and begins with, "First of all, I don't _hate_ Stefan. And second of all, I don't _love_ being a vampire. There are things I hate about him, and things I love about it, but those generalizations really bug me." He leans forward, propping his elbows on his knees, earnestly watching her. "I wanted to punish Katherine, yes, for everything she did, and so the tomb seemed like a good idea, but Stefan and I discussed the fact that we might need her alive because we knew she was running from something. I wanted to kill her more than I wanted to punish her, but I let the voice of reason sound in my ear on that one. And you and I both know that you and Stefan will eventually work all this shit out, and then you'll be so grateful that I didn't do any of my Damon-stuff.

"So, there. There's everything you need to know."

He stands up, and Elena knows he'll disappear before she can even see him move, so she says, "Wait," before he can vanish in a blink of an eye. "Don't leave," she says, and she puts enough inflection in her voice to show it's a request. A plea, even. _Don't leave me, Damon_.

He's just revealed more about himself, willingly, in less than one minute than he has in all the time she's known him combined. She feels a lightness in her chest that gives her the ability to be as equally candid. "What if Stefan and I don't ever get back together?" she asks. There are so many things to talk about, but this is the one thing that needs to be cleared up first.

One side of his mouth goes up in a smile that doesn't touch his eyes. "Not possible."

"What if we don't, Damon? What if you knew we'd never get back together. What would you do if you knew it would never happen?"

"I don't consider improbabilities," he announces, a formality in his speech that makes Elena feel he's playing another role--not snarky instigator this time, but the guy who steps aside, the one who isn't careless and impulsive. (Not himself, in other words.)

"I haven't slept with Stefan since before Katherine compelled Jenna to hurt herself." She blurts it out, and then feels her face flush. She knows it's significant, but she didn't mean to tell him like that.

He actually says nothing in return, but stares at her quizzically.

She shifts from one foot to another and steps towards him, feeling utterly naked. When he steps forward as well, she thinks it's encouragement, but still, she wants him to say something.

When he just asks, "Why?" she finds herself shrugging in indecision.

"I don't know _why_ ," she answers, which is the truth. "It just didn't feel right--after we got back together, I just _couldn't_." He compresses his lips into a thin line and looks away from her, but not before she sees some sort of elation in his expression. It amps up her courage just that much more. "But I think you know why." Her tone is loaded, and it's the closest she's ever come to trying to confront him about it.

He laughs mirthlessly. "I didn't compel you to not want Stefan," he says.

Surprised by that response, she tilts her head and watches him as he sinks back into a sitting position on the window seat. "No, I didn't think you had. But you said something that made something inside me change. Didn't you?"

He shakes his head, and remains silent, so she presses on. "I talked to Jeremy, and he said that even when he couldn't remember what happened to Vicki, the feeling of it was still there. He didn't know what caused the feeling, but he knew it was there. I don't know what caused it, for me, Damon, but you do. Because as soon as you did it, you started acting differently."

He finally looks her in the eye again. "I just left you alone, like you wanted."

"Wanted," she repeats. She can feel his fear now, and the fact that she can even scare him at all surprises her. It helps her hope that Rose has just been a distraction. "Past tense," she clarifies.

He stands up again, and she guesses he's still trying to leave, so she closes the distance between them as quickly as she can. Wrapping her hands lightly around his wrists, she knows that she doesn't posses the physical strength to hold him in anyway. What will keep him here with her now is only the correct combination of words.

(She doesn't know if she has them. It always comes down to this with Damon--careful steps that cultivate something deeper between them.)

He looks into her eyes, and for the first time she feels like she's so close to whatever the empty space in her memory is that she leans towards him, her bare feet lifting her up on toes that try to bring their faces together. Maybe he kissed her, and that's what she can't remember.

"I've been sleeping with Rose since the day after we rescued you from her."

Elena has felt sorry for Damon on many occasions; from the tomb to that moment in this very room when he tried to make her accept him when she just wasn't ready, but it's this one, when she knows he wants it so bad he can almost taste it, and yet he still resists, that makes something snap into place within her. It's to his credit that he attempts one more time to keep anything from happening between them.

So she repeats his query. "Why?"

He sighs, and closes his eyes for a brief moment. Then he says, "Because I wasn't ever going to sleep with you."

Elena smiles; she just can't help it. He laughs a little, though it's still quite humorless, and then drops her gaze, his eyes trailing to her neck, and the vervain necklace she still wears. She slides her fingers from his wrists to his palms and when his hands envelope hers, she starts to hope in a way she can't quantify.

"Damon..." she whispers. She's still holding herself up on her toes, but her legs are trembling now with the effort.

His hands squeeze hers, but then he lets go, moving them up to cup her face between his palms. "I'll never let you go," he says, and she shivers, because she already knows that; it's what she's been counting on. By doing this, she's effectively ending all possibilities between her and Stefan, not because it couldn't ever be again, but because choosing Damon instead is an irreversible act.

She's terrified but certain when his lips finally touch hers.

*

The hunger in Damon is ages old; in part it has nothing to do with Elena--it's just something he's searched for since before he was a vampire.

A human boy in deprivation of love became a vampire amplified by need and loss and decades of emptiness.

But with the brush of her tongue across his bottom lip and the slight strength of her arms as they encircle his neck, he learns that the hunger could only ever have been satisfied here, with her.

(He's been fucking starving, after all, and he could make a gourmet meal of her.)

To have Elena return even the smallest portion of that is far more than he has ever allowed himself to hope for (except for in his most desperate, drunken moments).

Her fingers clench in the hair at the nape of his neck and her teeth nip at his bottom lip, and her body-- _God, her long, beautiful body_ \--pressing fully against his is so overwhelming that he feels like a nineteenth century virgin bridegroom. (Something he was once upon a time, or at least could have been if not for Katherine Pierce.)

His dick strains against the zipper of his jeans, but it's his chest that feels like it might explode, and when Elena leads him toward her bed without even breaking their kiss, he knows this is unlike any other encounter he's ever had. (And he's had so many, the distinction is too painful to ignore.) Their lips separate when her legs hit the bed and she attempts to fall back on to it, pulling him with her, but he throws his hands out and stops his body's forward motion. His hands land on either side of her head, and he doesn't allow himself to cover her, though every cell in his body feels the weight of gravity in a completely magnetic way.

"Elena," he gasps, and her eyes fly open. Her hands now grip the lapels of his shirt, tugging him ever closer, but he resists. "Elena, no."

Her eyes widen and she searches his face. Gently, one of her hands comes up, her fingers skimming his jaw, caressing his cheek, and he moves his head into her touch, craving it far more than blood at the moment. "Damon," she whispers. "I want you to, please," and he remembers her _please_ back at the Boarding House.

"You can't seduce me into turning you," he says, and he's pretty sure it's just a deflective tactic, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

Her eyes are soft when she answers, "You think once will be enough?" and he hears the underlying question there too. If he can claim her forever ( _I'll never let you go_ ), how can he realistically think beyond the inevitable ( _You should turn me_ )? Maybe Stefan never thought about it, but Damon had, long before Elena brought it up.

Loving someone forever really sucks if they aren't around. He knows, he cut his baby vampire teeth on that slogan.

"If I won't turn you, you'll only fuck me once?" he asks, but even though the words are right, he can't put the unfeeling harshness to them that should get him successfully tossed out on his metaphoric ass.

Her fingers move to the buttons on his shirt. His stomach muscles quiver as her nails scrape gently at the trail of hair below his navel. His unneeded breath shudders through his lungs when one of her hands slides beneath the waistband of his pants. "Tell me what I can't remember," she says, catching him completely by surprise.

It's so easy to say, he can't believe he ever made her forget it. "I love you, Elena."

 

*

Elena lays in her bed, next to him, and she can't. Quit. Touching. Him. For months, she's denied herself the admission that she wanted him; that he was so beautiful that she sometimes found it hard to look at him, that everything inside her only wanted this sort of intimacy with him, that it frightens her so much because it's _Damon_ and she's watched him kill people, including her own brother.

What surprises her now, in the sweet aftermath of making love with him, is that she feels even more tenderly for him because of how positively wonderful he has been. It doesn't surprise her that he knows his way around a woman, or that as a vampire he possesses brutal strength that can injure her. But the fluid way he moved with her, and the care he put into each caress of his hands or brush of his lips over her body--well, even if he hadn't said the words, she would know he loved her anyway.

She feels cherished and ravished at the same moment, and now, he lies on his back next to her, not talking, and her fingers dance over his stomach and chest, tracing his arms and flanks.

And he just lets her. His eyes are closed and he says nothing, but she knows he's not asleep. One of his arms surrounds her, holding her next to him, and his hand plays with her hair in a completely innocent and thoroughly relaxing way, stroking the strands gently.

"What will Aunt Jenna say about this, I wonder?" he murmurs. His lips curl upward, but his eyes stay closed.

Elena giggles softly. "Oh, god," she breathes, because she didn't think this through at all. She'd thought about so many other things, but she hadn't really considered the consequences of what being with Damon would mean for other people.

Well, except for one.

She could reply, _I wonder what your brother will say_ , but she hates to mention Stefan, not now, not when everything feels perfect for one small moment. She knows it can't last, but that doesn't mean she doesn't want to stretch it out as long as possible.

Damon's voice is contemplative when he adds, "Maybe we shouldn't tell anyone for now."

She lays her head on his shoulder. "For now?" she questions.

"No reason to piss everyone off if we're just gonna die, right?"

Elena's palm comes to rest flat against his abdomen, and his hand covers hers, holding her still. "We can't die now, Damon. Not when we've finally..."

"It's good incentive, trust me. I've never wanted to live more. But until it's over, one way or another? For Stefan."

Elena's eyes burn with tears. She's had her doubts through the last year, but as sure as she is now that Damon loves her, she also knows he loves his brother. She doesn't want to ruin any tentative relationship between them. "You're right," she whispers.

He pulls her tightly to his side, and she climbs on top of him to bury her face in the cove of his neck and shoulder. Pressing her lips to his throat, she settles against him like they've slept naked together many times, like this isn't the first time for so many things that feel natural. His hands are wide and comforting as they move up and down on her back.

"Sleep," he whispers in return.

Tomorrow it will all be there to deal with. Tonight, she sleeps without unanswered dreams.

 _This is me praying that this was the very first page/Not where the storyline ends._


	4. Chapter 4

Damon remembers his fascination with Katherine all too well. The insatiability, the goddamn _yearning_ that seemed to carve his chest open from the inside out, and the feeling, when he thought she was dead, that all the light had gone out of the world with the snap of some fingers. (Or, in that case, with the brunt of a shot gun blast opening up his chest quite literally.)

In the intervening years he'd told himself it was first love; or the power and mystique of Katherine herself (though he'd never been compelled, except once or twice when she was particularly bitchy); and of course the cop out that he'd just been young, innocent, completely without cynicism despite living in a world where people were sold like cattle and his own father willingly killed him and his brother.

As his hands and lips and eyes roam Elena's pale, long-limbed body, he decides it's just him. When he loves someone--really loves them--he's sort of obsessive. Very obsessive. Whatever. It's semantics. The point is he's had three days to learn everything he can about her body, and he's been determined to know it as well as his own, especially if this is the only time he ever gets with her.

They could die, after all. Or, you know, Stefan will come home and this whole thing will be chalked up to a mistake, to a moment of weakness for Elena (if one could call what they've been doing repeatedly for the last 72 hours merely weakness), to something she regrets, and she'll look at him with those eyes, and he'll have no choice but to let her go, despite his vow that he never will.

He knows he loves her too much to destroy her. It's like all those years he spent having no regard for anyone have suddenly been swallowed up in Elena, in the way she makes him feel, in the things she inspires him to do.

So, as he makes her come against his tongue, and her nails dig into his scalp as the fingers buried in his hair contract in rhythm with the tremors shaking her thighs, he sighs out a breath across her sensitive skin. He's learned every little thing about her body, what she likes, what drives her the most crazy the fastest, and he's used it all to his own advantage as much as he's pleasured her.

She's pretty good at what she does, too, and he tries to never think of where she learned all of it; instead he focuses on the fact that it drives him mad because it's her, and he never thought she would ever touch him so intimately, much less blow him like a champ or ride him long and hard. (When he commented on it, she had smirked naughtily. "I rode horses as a kid." So, he tackled her and started it all over again.)

"Damon," she gasps now, her hands still in his hair, tugging him gently upwards. Their lips meet and her legs coil around his naked hips and she welcomes him inside her body with a warmth and enthusiasm that blinds him to all the rest of it, at least momentarily.

As he seeks his own release in her arms, he forgets for a moment to worry about the clock and instead murmurs, "I love you," into her neck.

The words whispered in return into the skin of his shoulder as she arches beneath him, soothing and inciting at the same time, pushes him over the edge. He shudders against her, and then stills, completely content for a short span of time.

*

Stefan and Bonnie return with Lucy in tow the next day. Elena sits, listening to their plan, her eyes straying to Damon, who resolutely does not look at her the entire time.

She wonders if he realizes that Stefan will find that more suspicious than if he paid her the normal amount of snarky attention he usually did. Or if he'll notice that Rose has conveniently disappeared. Of course, her penchant for running makes for an easy explanation, but Damon told her she could stay if she wanted, and she hadn't. Elena can't say that she blames her.

Caroline comes to stand beside her as the witches, Alaric (with vervain darts in his pocket), Damon, and Stefan leave to go get Katherine out of the tomb. They've all been camping out at the Salvatores for so long, it feels like they all live there, like some kind of big, dysfunctional family. Caroline's arm surrounds Elena's shoulder and she says, "Let's make dinner!" which further proves Elena's point, but she nods, because what else is she going to do? She's not a witch, and she's not a vampire, nor is she a vampire hunter with a bunch of handy weapons. All she is, besides _The Doppleganger_ , is Damon's lover, and Stefan's tormenter (funny, how quickly those two situations reversed themselves), and if she's really lucky, the reason everyone she loves is about to die.

Caroline starts browning hamburger for spaghetti sauce while Elena makes a salad. (The kitchen used to have hardly any food, just like a regular bachelor pad--plus the fact that the residents didn't really need to eat people food--but between Elena, Bonnie, and Caroline, it's well stocked now.) She's not in the mood to talk, but she can't avoid the obvious when her friend asks, "So, are you going to tell Stefan about you and Damon?" (Not _when_ are you going to tell him. Significant.)

She doesn't even try to feign surprise that Caroline knows. She and Damon hadn't come up for air since that night in her bedroom, though they'd moved their recreational activities to the empty boarding house until Stefan returned. Now, she hasn't touched or kissed Damon for nearly six hours and her skin crawls at the idea of not being able to. She just shrugs as she chops up cucumbers, but she doesn't look at Caroline. "Damon doesn't want to hurt Stefan. You know, in case everything goes badly with our plan. We decided to wait and tell him...after."

"Oh," Caroline says, an edge in her voice.

"What?" Elena asks. She can't help it now, she looks surreptitiously at this girl she's known since she was six years old.

Caroline doesn't have a problem looking her right in the eye, but she lacks the old bossiness and slightly superior tone she would have carried when she was human. "I guess I thought you'd get it out of your system...and then well, realize that that's not what you want."

Elena stares, feeling stung, but also that guilty knot in her stomach tightens painfully and her defenses make her want to snap back. She takes a deep breath instead and tries to say calmly, "I love Damon, Caroline."

"More than Stefan?" she asks, still watching Elena with an intensity that makes her glad she's wearing her vervain necklace.

Setting the knife aside, she wipes her hands on a dishtowel and faces Caroline fully. "Different than Stefan. Stefan and I...we're just _not_ anymore. We grew apart, or I grew up, or...I don't even know exactly. All I know is that I want to be with Damon and he wants to be with me, and I hope that when we tell Stefan--"

"He'll just be fine with it?" Caroline demands, her voice finally going up into that shrill area. "You've got to be kidding yourself."

Elena shakes her head. "Just because Matt has had such a hard time with you and Tyler--"

"Right, because being best friends isn't the same at all as being brothers! Not to mention that Stefan and Damon have been through this before--and it went really badly, remember? And how can you prefer Damon to Stefan? For God's sake, Elena, he--"

"Hey," Elena says, lifting her hands, her fingers spread wide to indicate that Caroline should stop. "I don't need your approval, or your understanding, Caroline. And trust me, I'm well aware that Damon and Stefan have a precarious relationship. And if it comes to that, I'll bow out, you know I will. You know me. But, if we're all going to die--or if some of us are going to die--with me being the most likely candidate, then I couldn't not... _not_." Suddenly tears fill her eyes and splash down her cheeks. "I love him, Caroline. And he loves me, and he's never--" She presses a hand to her chest when a sob wells up, choking her. "He's never had it before. You should see how he is, how unbelievably sweet he is, and--"

Before she can get a good grip on her emotions, she's suddenly in Caroline's arms, being grasped almost painfully tight. "I'm sorry," Caroline whispers, her face against Elena's shoulder. "I know, I do. I can see how he is with you--everyone can. I'm just bitter and jealous, and, you know. _Me_."

Elena strokes a hand through Caroline's blonde hair and asks, "Jealous? Of what?"

Caroline pulls back, her hands firmly holding Elena's shoulders. "If there's any love triangle that can work out well, it's one you're involved in, you know. Because things always work out for you. My triangle leaves me stuck between a guy I love who I can't tell I'm a vampire and a guy I love who I can't tell that Damon killed his uncle." Caroline sniffs and Elena feels more tears on her own cheeks.

"It sucks, you know?" Caroline adds, and then they both giggle at her choice of words.

"Yeah," Elena says. "I know." They hug again, but Elena wonders if Caroline's right. Could it all work out somehow, in a positive way? She doesn't know, and she can't help feeling selfish for her part in all of it, though she knows she wouldn't change anything even if she could.

She isn't a fickle girl; she never jumped from boy to boy like Vicki Donovan; or replaced one crush with another if the first one appeared uninterested the way Caroline had done when she was human; and unlike Bonnie, who often seemed so hesitant Elena thought she might never date anyone, Elena has always just gone after what she wants. Once she realized she loved Damon, she hadn't hesitated the way she should have, considering that she'd dated his brother on and off for a year and a half.

(Often she feels so powerless in the midst of all the action that the only thing she could do was what she'd done. Forcing Damon to confront what lay between them hadn't helped the overall cause, obviously, but it did make her feel better. If they died tomorrow, at least she'd been honest with him.)

Now, however, it seems foolish to wait and hope that Stefan's good nature might save her (or Damon) from making a definitive statement.

As she and Caroline pull themselves together, wiping their damp cheeks dry and going back to fixing dinner, she knows what she needs to do.

They might save her physically, but perhaps her last human act will give them closure.

*

They give Katherine enough vervain to contain her (which is a lot since she worked up a tolerance for it) and it's hard to know how mobile she'll be the next day, or if they'll need to dose her up again before they meet with Klaus and Elijah at the designated time. After he and Stefan lock her in the basement, they go upstairs and eat dinner with what Damon has dubbed the "Scooby Doo Gang." (Bonnie, Lucy, Elena, Caroline, Alaric, Tyler, Stefan, and himself. Tyler is obviously the Great Dane, right?)

Elena works it out so that she's sitting next to him, and he wishes she wasn't right there. Everyone has always been able to read him so easily when it comes to her, and he finds he can hardly look Stefan in the eye what with all the fucking he's done the last few days.

If his brother suspects anything, he hasn't said a word. Of course, they've all got bigger things on their minds. Except that Damon really can't think about anything more than he thinks about Elena. And with her sitting next to him, her scent strong and her hand brushing his leg under the table, he really fears he won't be able to control himself.

Tomorrow, they could all close their eyes for the last time. He looks around the table, trying to focus on the other people there, and he's assaulted with the knowledge that he cares about all of them--well, not Lucy or Tyler, but everyone else has somehow become important to him.

When it comes down to it though, it's only Elena and Stefan that he'll try to protect. The rest of them are on their own because he only has two hands. They are the two most important people, even if it would pain him to see Caroline with a stake through her heart, or Bonnie lying there with lifeless eyes, unable to ever give him another headache, or Alaric--his man ring somehow separated from his body and no chance of Team Badass ever doing any hunting together again.

God, he's such a pussy now. He sends Elena a look, blaming her silently and she notices, her eyebrows quirking and her mouth opening to ask, "What?"

He stands up from the table and looks around at everyone. "I'll see you all at dawn. Try to get some sleep."

He makes his way upstairs. They've got no plan beyond Lucy and Bonnie breaking the spell on the moonstone before Elijah and Klaus have a shot at Elena, but he knows blood will be shed, no matter what. He just doesn't know whose, or if Klaus or Elijah are even killable. Considering he's already killed Elijah once, he's betting on _not_ killable. Rose had had no helpful information either, of course, and now that she'd run off to wherever she'd run off too, he can't say that he misses her. Though an extra set of hands might be useful.

In his room, he finds Elena's Taylor Swift CD sitting on the desk. He doesn't put it in his laptop to listen to it.

*

Elena has just finished with the dishes when Stefan comes into the kitchen.

"You didn't have to do that," he says softly. As though it's just occurred to him, he adds, "We may not need those dishes clean ever again."

Elena smiles wanly at him. It's a little depressing how they've all just accepted that they might die in the morning, but she supposes it's better to go in with low expectations. She's glad he's here, though, it saves her the trouble of trying to seek him out so she can have what she expects to be a painful conversation with him. But she doesn't want there to be any bad feelings between him and Damon as they go into this battle.

She can be the martyr Damon always accuses Stefan of being right now if she needs to be.

"Is Damon going to feed you some of his blood?" Stefan asks.

Elena feels her eyes flare wide and she can't disguise her shock when she sees the truth plainly on her ex-boyfriend's face. But she answers honestly, "If he won't, I'll come to you."

"Good," he says nodding.

"He doesn't want me to turn," she says, feeling compelled (though she's not, it's Stefan after all) to confess further.

"I don't want you to turn, either," he says, watching her steadily. "But I don't like the idea of you dead forever more than I don't like the idea of you as a Vampire." He smiles at her, the old soulful, wistful Stefan who had once been all she needed to bring her back to the world of the living after her parents died. Now, she feels gratitude she can't quantify, and a certain uneasiness because no matter how good Stefan is, it's just expecting too much that he's _this_ good.

"I want you to be happy," he says, as if it's just that simple.

"I want you to be happy, too," she responds and she takes a step towards him.

He shakes his head, as if he can't believe what he's about to say, but then he offers it up anyway. "I've realized that if Damon's happy, I'll be happy. He's been miserable for 145 years, and so have I, one way or another. Even when we," he points to himself and then her, "were together, and things were good, I was always worried about him in some way. If he's with you, I won't worry."

Elena feels tears leaking down her face and she has no words for him, other than she loves him and she always will, but she doesn't think that's what she should say right now. He hugs her, his hands moving over her back in that familiar way, something that springs only from deep caring and days and months together. "Stay alive, Elena. I'll do my best to keep him alive, too. And he'll finally have a chance to be happy."

He presses his lips to the top of her head and then lets her go.

She stands next to the sink, her fingers gripping the Formica. She doesn't even really believe in god, or any of that, yet she still utters the prayer of _please_.

*

Damon doesn't expect her to come, but he's glad when she does. She opens his bedroom door quietly and then stands with her back pressed to it, just looking at him. He sits on the end of the bed, not sleeping as he advised everyone else. He wonders if she's slept at all, but he doubts it. It's four in the morning and they'll all be heading to their rendezvous in a less than two hours.

She has a secret in her eyes, but before he can try to pry it out of her, she crosses the distance between them and climbs on his lap. Her fingers dive into his hair and her lips cover his, and he knows they're reckless and stupid, but he can't not have her, at least one more time.

They undress quickly, shirts flung across the room and she gets off of him long enough to shuck down her underwear and pants, but only undoes his button and zipper so that his erection is handy and then she gets back on top of him. She wants to control it, so he lets her, but it's not until he's balls-deep inside her that he finds out why. She sweeps her hair to the side, exposing her neck to his mouth and then whispers in his ear, "I'll give you a taste if you give me one."

Blood gathers around his eyes (all that's not already in his cock) and his fangs extend against his will. He knows if he does drink from her, he'll have to give her his blood in return because she'd be too weak to face what's coming without it.

They haven't discussed this, but that doesn't mean he hasn't faced the reality of the situation. If she dies, it doesn't have to be forever. But if _he_ dies, and she dies with his blood in her system--then what?

Her teeth score his neck in the exact spot that she's offering up to him, scraping lightly, not causing anything more than pleasure to ripple across his skin. He loves having sex with Elena more than he even thought he would, and the idea of fucking her and sucking her blood at the same time makes him almost unbearably aroused. He knows he'll come as soon as he sinks his teeth into her neck-- _if he sinks his teeth into her neck_.

"If you die, I won't feed. I won't complete the transition." The words are whisper sharp against his skin, and while he knows the intention of not feeding, he also knows the force, the _need_ for blood, something that is mere theory to Elena at this point.

He throws his head back, staring up the at the ceiling in an effort to control his ravenous desire for her blood--for her _everything_. "I don't want this life for you," he grates out, the words sounding painful in his throat and slightly different from his normal speech because of his bared fangs.

Her hand curves gently around his neck, drawing his head back down. "I want to be with you...always," she whispers.

He is seduced, completely and irrevocably, his teeth grazing and then sinking past the soft white skin. She gasps and he sucks the salty, metallic warmth into his mouth, his tongue lapping at the pierced points as he bucks under her. Her arms tighten around his shoulders as her thighs do the same at his hips. She never loses the rhythm, even as his control is obliterated by her blood flowing into his mouth and his release flowing out of him. He forces himself to stop sucking at her neck when his orgasm subsides because he could go on until she's lifeless in his grasp, and that's not the point--that is the exact opposite of it, in fact.

He knows she's not satisfied--she didn't come and she still wants his blood, but it's not until their eyes meet that he understands she wants them both simultaneously. As a vampire, his body doesn't always follow the strict laws of nature that apply to human systems and organs, and the knowledge that she's hot for him in this way makes another erection immediately possible.

He reverses their positions, flipping her onto her back and raking his teeth against the inside of his wrist as he does so. As he lowers his arm to her mouth, her legs circle his waist, the heels of her feet digging into the small of his back so that she arches beneath him like a perfect bow. Her lips glide over the sensitive skin of his arm and she drinks from him, her eyes widening in pleasure that has him grabbing one of her legs with his free hand to jerk her knee up until she's spread as wide under him as she can be.

She moans so loudly that even the weight of his arm over her mouth doesn't seem to muffle it and he can feel another orgasm racing down his spine. He shifts a little, bringing his pubic bone down against her so that he's hitting her in the exact right spot. She comes, loudly and gloriously, drinking his blood and draining him of every other thought so that when the second one hits him, and his vision goes white, heaven is right there, and it consists of him and her and nothing else.

*

Elena drifts in the dreamy aftermath, her head slightly buzzed and hurting from the consumption of vampire blood. But unlike the time Damon had forced her to take his blood--that awful night in the graveyard--she feels this inner elation that takes away any discomfort in her head.

He's heavy and unmoving on top of her, and she thinks he's gone to sleep, which is fine for now, though if she's going to get any rest at all, he'll have to move eventually. For the moment, though, she enjoys the weight of him against her, the warmth and security he brings, and then wonders if this is how it always is when you love someone as intense as Damon.

She's always had enjoyable sex in the past (fumbling learning until they got it right with Matt, and then a slow, wonderful burn with Stefan who had always been very careful with her), but even her other encounters with Damon hadn't been quite as erotic as what she just experienced. Was it the blood exchange, or the idea that this might be their last time that made it so amazing? A little of both, perhaps? All she knows is that his wildness is never containable, but this had been far beyond anything she'd felt from him before.

She strokes her hand through his hair and blinks back tears. She loves him so much, she can't bear the idea of not having this chance again. She imagines him, young and brokenhearted, sitting on the banks of a river waiting for death to come and take him to Katherine. That had been a fantasy of impossibilities, but either way, after tonight Elena will be with him forever--here in Mystic Falls, or in the ether. Their futures, or lack thereof, are as intimately intertwined as anything fate ever conceived of putting together. That much she's certain of. (And Katherine will pay, finally.)

" _I had the time of my life, fighting dragons with you_ ," she quotes, staring at the dark wood ceiling above Damon's bed.

He shifts against her and mumbles in her ear: "Why do you have to like Taylor Swift? Why can't you like somebody cool?"

The grin that breaks over her face seems incongruous with the grumbly nature of his words. "Like who, Damon? Who should I like instead?"

He pushes himself up on an elbow, looking down into her face. "I don't know. Katy Perry. Ke$ha. Somebody _cool_." His eyes twinkle and a smile hovers at the corners of his mouth.

She places a hand on his cheek. "Because Taylor Swift sings to my heart." The moment grows serious, and maybe even a little cheesy, but she doesn't care. " _Long live the walls we crashed through / All the candlelight shined just for me and you / And I was screaming, 'long live all the magic we made' / And bring on all the pretenders / I'm not afraid_."

His fingers ghost over her hair, and his lips purse. The debate lingers in his expression before he finally says, "Well, that's great, because I'm fucking terrified."

She thinks of Stefan in the kitchen, and Elijah in her house striking a deal to end all deals. "It will all work out," she says, and she doesn't know where the faith suddenly comes from, but she grasps it with both hands. And to take the fear from his eyes, she adds, "Besides, _your love is my drug._ "

Damon buries his face in her throat, laughing.

*

As the sun pinkens the horizon, they all stumble into the great room of the Boarding House. Alaric goes over the plan, yet again, in case any of them have forgotten and Caroline doles out cups of coffee, which everyone slurps gratefully. It's not quite six a.m., and what Damon wishes his day entailed is slinging his arm around Elena's neck and dragging her back up the stairs to bed.

She looks fine; the marks that should be on her neck from his teeth have already faded because of his blood in her system and he feels his cock stir in his pants. (Only he could get a hard-on as he's marching towards the most epic battle he's been in since 1863.)

He loves Elena Gilbert more than is possible to calculate and all he wants to do is lock her in the basement where Katherine still lies, angry but doped up on the vervain they'd injected her with the day before.

He will do anything to keep her safe, and if something happens to her today, he won't rest until he's killed every single Original, and anyone else who gets in his way.

Her hand squeezes his and then Stefan and Alaric go to get Katherine. No one says anything, the silence deafening to them all.

As they climb into their various cars several minutes later, the strange little caravan of witches, vampires, humans, and lone wolf, all he can think of is that a little over a year ago he'd been just as willing to sacrifice his life for Katherine's freedom. So much has changed, but really so little is different, except that Elena will be worth it; whatever the outcome, he will have no regrets.

*

They arrive early to the place Elijah told them would be sufficient for the sacrifice. This is the part that Elena really doesn't understand: that he really thinks they would all come there and let him kill her. But then again, everything about Elijah is cagey and unknowable. Maybe his plan has nothing to do with her whatsoever. Maybe he gave her an assignment just to keep her busy. (She hadn't told anyone because she knows how they all are. They would try to stop her. And regardless of what happens to her, she wants to do this.)

Lucy and Bonnie begin to chant, the moonstone gripped in their joined hands. Katherine makes inane, sarcastic comments from the side and Stefan tells her to shut the fuck up. Elena smiles when she sees Damon's eyes bulge as his head swivels to look at his brother. Tyler and Caroline stand side by side, fingers interlocked. Alaric is next to her, his body tense and his arms slightly raised. She knows he has multiple stakes up both his sleeves, and it's only a matter of time before they start flying.

She had asked Alaric for a stake band for her arm as well, which he had provided to her. She looks around, watching the trees in the distance from this small meadow where they all stand. She's sure Elijah is there, just waiting, hoping that Klaus will be drawn out by their ritualistic gathering. She knows what she's supposed to do--but she has to wait for the right moment, and she has to hope that neither Stefan nor Damon will be quick enough to realize her intent.

The deal she'd made with the devil hadn't been hard for her to agree to, in any way. When she thought of all the things she'd like to do before she died, she couldn't imagine anything more satisfying that killing Katherine Pierce. Damon and Stefan hope to hand her over to Klaus as some sort of peace offering; they think that act will somehow prevent the need for Elena's death, but she doesn't have any faith in that.

Elijah said if she killed Katherine right after the curse was lifted, then he would distract Klaus and nobody would die. (She also doesn't believe that, but at the very least Katherine will be dead.)

And, most likely, she'll be dead, too, but Damon will know, and Stefan will guess. Soon she will wake, ready for a new life. Ready for eternity.

The wind picks up and it starts to rain. Elena looks up, wondering how there can be storm clouds suddenly when the sky had been completely clear minutes before. Bonnie and Lucy's words get louder, and Elena shivers. The moonstone glows, seems to expand in their hands and then they let go of it. It rises slowly, multiple sets of eyes upon it and then erupts like a firework, showering them in light, and the rain shuts off as abruptly as a faucet.

Everything else happens so suddenly, later Elena won't be able to remember the exact order of things. First she sees Elijah at the edge of the meadow, standing with another man, one who looks as though he has stepped from the pages of ancient history. Alaric steps protectively in front of her as Damon and Stefan move forward. Damon calls out, "We have Katerina Petrova," his pronunciation of her name as old-sounding as the voice that responds with, "I have no need of her."

Elena's eyes meet Elijah's, his chin lowers marginally, and she slips around the small circle of her friends without anyone noticing her movement.

It's just as she comes up behind Katherine that the blurring action around them indicates there are several other vampires, whether loyal to Klaus or Elijah, Elena doesn't know. She doesn't have time to dwell on it anyway as Katherine spins around. She still looks a little hollowed out from all the vervain, but she's strong, and old, and Elena knows this is her only shot.

Running, she closes the distance between her and the woman who looks just like her. Stretching out her arm, she shoots the stake band, catching Katherine in the belly, and she stumbles back, falling down between Damon and Stefan. Then Elena is on top of her and she makes sure the next stake sliding into her hand is right over Katherine's heart.

Someone screams her name--multiple someones--and then she feels blood on her hands, and Katherine's eyes widen in total surprise before the light goes out of them completely. She withers beneath Elena's hand and then someone tackles her, slamming her into the ground beside her doppleganger.

"Stay down!" It's Caroline and for once, Elena obeys. Lying face down in the grass, she doesn't move, but listens as fists and feet connect with faces and torsos and legs. Intermittent cries of pain echo around her, but none of them sound like Damon, and she doesn't dare move to see what's happening.

Minutes pass, maybe more, but she's suddenly hauled to her feet and Elijah's hands grip her shoulders. "Well done, Elena," he says, as though she just passed her college entrance exams. "All will be well now." He kisses her forehead before disappearing. She looks around, seeing most of those she loves lying on the ground, though none of them look dead. Near the tree line, Klaus, whom she's never actually met, is dead, his body going up in flames as Elijah walks away.

She finally finds the one she needs to see the most, and she can't help but scream his name as she runs across the field.

*

"Damon!"

He can hear her, the desperation in her voice the same horrific fear raging in his belly, and he lifts his head. The vampire he'd been fighting had been stronger than him and had clocked him good, but had suddenly gone as the morning sun continued to rise.

As Elena gets closer, she yells his name again, and he's bleeding, and groaning, and healing all at the same moment. He can't believe what he saw her do, but as she kneels down next to him her fingers--coated in Katherine's blood--grasp his face and she leans over him. "Are you all right?" she asks, her breath panting harshly from her lips.

He realizes it the moment before she closes the distance between them that she's going to kiss him, and he's so stunned that he doesn't kiss her back. His hands are in her hair though, holding her over him and he says, "I can't believe you did that," even though that's not really true. He can believe anything of Elena, because when it comes right down to it, she has more courage than anyone he's ever known.

"Elijah said all would be well," she breathes, her lips finding his again, and this time he's not so shell-shocked that he can't respond. He kisses her, sliding his tongue deftly into her mouth. He takes a breath, and something twinges in his chest. He realizes he feels a little....off but he says nothing as she helps him sit up.

The world is spinning a bit, but he's functional. He thinks about asking her for a little bit of her blood to help speed up the healing process, but the thought makes him feel a bit nauseated, so he says nothing. He hugs her, holding her close to his body and murmurs, "If you'd just stop saving my life all the time, yours might get a lot less complicated."

He's joking of course--trying to get his footing back and lose the sick feeling in his stomach--and he knows it's an assy way to say thank you, but she just leans towards him, tucking her chin against his shoulder. She whispers, "Never," near his ear, and he realizes he can barely hear her, another strange sensation when usually the softest sound from a hundred paces is loud and clear.

He looks around and every single one of their party is fine. They're all on their feet, hugging each other and celebrating what seems to be the victory of victories.

Damon can't help but think it was all a little too easy.

*

Elena brings him back to her house, because she wants to be alone with him, not at the Boarding House with everyone else.

They're both quiet, and she wonders if she's suffering some kind of post-traumatic stress shock or something. She feels strangely disconnected from her body, and Damon feels far away, even as he weaves his fingers through hers and they walk up the steps of her house.

Jeremy and Jenna are at the table eating breakfast as they come in. Elena uses her standard deflection of "I don't want to talk about it," as she leads Damon up the stairs to her bedroom and avoids Jenna's concerned gaze. She nods at her brother so he knows it's done, and a smile of relief flits over his face.

When they're lying on her bed just holding each other, his hand takes a firm grasp within her hair. " _What you did isn't who you are_ , you know," he says sagely, his voice soft. She knows they're both about to fall asleep because the adrenaline rush is over, leaving them crashing in a way that makes her so glad they're safely home.

Leave it to Damon to be romantic even at a moment like this. She giggles softly. "Are you quoting Taylor Swift to me?" she asks.

His shoulder moves under her head, as though he's shrugging. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em," he says.

"I was glad to kill her," she says, and even she can hear the fierceness in her tone.

He gives a little laugh, but she knows he's practically asleep as he says, "Me, too." Then, very softly, he says, "Whatever happens, Elena. I love you. I'll always be with you."

If she weren't so exhausted, those words might have set off alarm bells, but instead, she snuggles her face into his chest and sinks so deeply into sleep, she doesn't move for fourteen hours.

*

Damon falls asleep about the same time, but he doesn't think he's sleeping--he's certain that he's dying. Something happened when the curse was broken because his body doesn't feel right. The injuries he sustained in his hand-to-hand combat with one of the nameless vamps who had turned up with Elijah and Klaus have all healed just like always, but his muscles ache and he feels distinctly weaker--like...it's something he can't quite put his finger on.

It's been so long, it's hard to remember, but he feels...almost human-like. It's a distant memory, something that once was but no longer seems real because it happened so long ago. As Elena's deep breathing lulls him away, he's sure he won't wake again, and he's so grateful that she hadn't been killed in the battle. If he has to die, at least now she won't be consigned to a miserable life of fighting against the nature that is so unlike her true self. For this small mercy he gives thanks, and then fades into a blackness so complete he doesn't stir until the urgent shaking of someone's hands against his shoulders and his brother's voice penetrates his consciousness.

As if he's miles away, Damon floats back to the surface, opening his eyes, blinking to adjust to the overhead lamp that's been flicked on. It's dark outside past the curtains on Elena's window and Jeremy, Bonnie, and Caroline are all at the foot of the bed as Stefan continues to rock Damon's body until he becomes aware of the dead weight of Elena on his right side.

"Alright, alright, 'M'awake," he mumbles, shoving Stefan away. The first thing he becomes aware of is that even though he's able to make his brother stop assaulting him, he doesn't have any real force in his arm any more. That same move yesterday would have sent Stefan sprawling on to the floor. Elena's eyes flutter sleepily and she moans soft in her throat, her leg moving from where it's slung over his, upward. He puts his hand on her knee to prevent what he knows is the wake-up straddle she's so fond of, and he can't help smiling at the way he can read her. Their relationship isn't even a week old yet, and he feels like he's been with her forever.

"Damon, how do you feel?" This from Caroline at the end of the bed. Damon forces himself to wake fully, but his head is fuzzy, like he's got a hangover. Except that he never gets hangovers, no matter how much he's had to drink. His vampiric healing abilities have always taken that morning-after wretchedness away before it could settle in. It's always been one of his favorite things about being a vampire.

"Like shit," he answers, because it's the first descriptor that comes to mind.

Bonnie looks at Caroline and they both have this excitement about them that Damon can't figure out. (Sure, they should be happy if he feels like shit, they both hate his guts, but it's rude to wake him and then celebrate his problem.) Elena stretches and opens her eyes and they both slowly sit up.

"Damon?" Stefan asks.

Turning his gaze toward him, Damon says, "Brother?"

"We're human again," Stefan says, and his hand reaches out to grip Damon's shoulder.

"What?" Damon asks, in the midst of total confusion and dawning realization. His body--the muscle aches, the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach--and now his apparent weakness. It was just like that awful morning he'd woken up on the road half a mile from the church, and lurching down the road, watched the flames dancing in the sky. When he'd realized Katherine was dead and he was _undead_.

Now, he realizes he's alive, and Stefan has tears in his eyes and Bonnie and Caroline are hugging, and Elena has a look of complete bewilderment on her face.

Whatever he supposes would happen after they broke the curse on the moonstone, this is the one thing that never occurred to any of them. As he stands up and hugs his brother, he can't process the implications, but he knows a happiness he hasn't felt in 146 years.

*

Elena Gilbert graduates from high school a few weeks later. Her boyfriend continues to garner the disapproving frowns of the town's people who think he's a tad too old to be dating her, but all things considered, now that Damon's actually aging again, it only causes Elena to grin and bear it.

She doesn't care what anyone thinks, because in the aftermath of the curse being broken, Alaric finally tells Jenna everything (now that she is in no danger from supernatural beings) and she actually goes back to liking Damon, just as she had before Katherine had duped her.

Rose turns back up, wondering how come she's a mere mortal again, and when Stefan tells her what happened the day they broke the curse, she relates one of those many "myths" she'd picked up over the years. This one includes the rules changing in the event that a doppleganger kills a doppleganger (which somehow trumps the fact that the first doppleganger had killed herself to avoid being able to break the curse in the first place).

They never see Elijah again, and Tyler passes through the next full moon without ever breaking a sweat. Caroline, torn as she'd been between two boys for two valid reasons, realizes that maybe she ought to turn her attentions to Stefan, who is definitely single again, and looking at her in a new light now that she's still the confident, secure woman who'd spent eight months as a vampire, but is now just as human as he is.

Elena's not sure what will happen there, but she knows it will be interesting to watch.

She and Damon take a road trip to Georgia in the early summer, just the two of them. They sight-see historic places along the way, and take pictures of themselves, laughing with double chins because the camera is too close. They make love in motel rooms off the interstate, and sometimes in the backseat of his blue muscle car, because it's pretty roomie. Mostly they eat and sleep and have too much fun.

In a motel just south of Atlanta, Elena tells him she's been accepted to Brown University in Rhode Island. His head whips around and she narrows her eyes at him when he tries to act like he didn't just have a huge reaction. After an hour of intense arguing, he finally confesses that he lived in Rhode Island back in 2006.

"It's where I started listening to Taylor Swift," he says, sticking his tongue out at her.

She knows there's more to it than that, but she figures if he doesn't want to tell her, it's probably because she doesn't want to know whatever it is. She sits on his lap and slides her hand into the hair at the back of his neck. "Maybe I could find a regular job in Rhode Island. It could work," he says musingly, his arm resting across her thighs.

She watches his face carefully. "Learning to live with human limitations again is hard, I know."

Damon just smiles. "No," he says, shaking his head. "Somehow, I think it's just what I need." She believes him.

When he quotes, " _You are the best thing that's ever been mine_ ," she just starts laughing and lets him roll them across the bed until she's beneath him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics used throughout the story are from the various Taylor Swift songs, including: "Tim McGraw," "Cold As You," "Picture To Burn," "The Story of Us," "Sparks Fly," "Enchanted," "Long Live," "Innocent," and "Mine," as well as Ke$ha's "Your Love is My Drug."


End file.
